A BRITISH nurse who first contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone last year has been flown to a London hospital after the virus was detected for a second time.

Pauline Cafferkey has been flown to the Royal Free Hospital's isolation unit

Pauline Cafferkey has been flown from Glasgow to a specialist isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, north-west London to be treated for an "unusual late complication" of the infection.

The nurse was admitted to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow on Tuesday after feeling unwell and was treated in the infectious diseases unit.

Early this morning she was transported in a military aircraft to London and people who have been in close contact with her are being monitored by Scottish health authorities as a precaution.

PA

Ms Cafferkey is back in this isolation unit

A statement from the Royal Free said: "We can confirm that Pauline Cafferkey was transferred from the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow to the Royal Free London hospital in the early hours of this morning due to an unusual late complication of her previous infection by the Ebola virus.

"She will now be treated in isolation in the hospital's high-level isolation unit under nationally agreed guidelines.

"The Ebola virus can only be transmitted by direct contact with the blood or bodily fluids of an infected person while they are symptomatic, so the risk to the general public remains low and the NHS has well-established and practised infection control procedures in place."

Director of public health at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Dr Emilia Crighton, said: "Pauline's condition is a complication of previous infection with the Ebola virus.

"The risk to the public is very low. In line with normal procedures in cases such as this, we have identified a small number of close contacts of Pauline's that we will be following up as a precaution."

The Ebola Crisis

Fri, August 22, 2014

The latest Ebola outbreak is one of the largest and deadliest in history and the first in West Africa. The World Health Organization have declared an international health emergency as more than 1,200 people have already died from the virus in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria this year.

A burial team from the Liberian Ministry of Health unloads the bodies of Ebola victims onto a funeral pyre at a crematorium

After becoming infected last year, it emerged Ms Cafferkey's temperature had been tested seven times before she flew from Heathrow to Glasgow last December and was cleared to travel but later became seriously ill.

Last month she revealed she has no regrets about her trip to Sierra Leone and said she would go back to help again.

She said: ""Outwardly I just tried to be stoical about everything but inside, obviously, I was very frightened.

"I knew it could have gone three ways - it could have been mild, it could have been severe which it was with me, and it could have been death - the other outcome which I came very close to."

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Pauline Cafferkey was working with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone last year

Ms Cafferkey won an award at the Pride of Britain Awards two-weeks ago where she met the Prime Minister's wife, Samantha Cameron the following day at Downing Street with other winners.

The most recent outbreak of Ebola mainly affected three countries in West Africa: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

More than 28,000 cases and more than 11,000 deaths have been reported by the World Health Organisation.